There is a new twist to the postponed Presidential election after the State Security Service (SSS) summoned the senior official who heads the Independent National Electoral Commission’s operations and logistics, Okechukwu Ibeanu.
This is an indication the secret service may have moved to investigate the circumstances that led to the postponement of Nigeria’s elections earlier scheduled to hold last Saturday.
Mr Ibeanu, a professor of political science, was asked to report at the SSS office by 2:00 p.m., multiple sources close to INEC revealed.
Apart from Mr Ibeanu, others asked to appear before the SSS include Chidi Nwafor, the Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Ken Ukeagu; Osaze Uzzi, the Director of Voter Education and Publicity and Bimbo Oladunjoye, the Assistant Director of ICT.
Although Mr Ibeanu heads the commission’s operations and logistics department, PREMIUM TIMES learnt that a separate team appointed by the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, handled the logistics for the election.
Three months to the election, on November 6, Mr Yakubu announced the setting up of an “advisory committee on logistics for the 2019 general elections.”
The internal memorandum announcing the committee to INEC officials was signed by Maryam Iya Musa, the Director, Commission Secretariat.
Mr Ibeanu, who officially heads the INEC logistics department, was not made a member of the committee.
“Curiously, close to the election, INEC chair created an ad hoc committee on logistics for the 2019 elections which reported directly to him. Prof Ibeanu is not a member of that committee,” said our source, an INEC insider.
Another source close the INEC leadership said such committee was unprecedented in INEC’s history.
“There was nothing like that under Jega (Attahiru, immediate past INEC chairman). Nobody knows why Professor Yakubu decided to duplicate functions and hand such a crucial task (logistics) to a committee when there is a department to handle it,” the source said.
The 15-member advisory committee is headed by another national commissioner, Ahmed Mu’azu, a retired Air Vice Marshall.
Two other national commissioners of INEC – Abubakar Nahuche and Mohammed Haruna – are also members of the committee. Other members include representatives of the country’s military services and other government institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Road Safety Commission.
